In your opinion, is the demise of print newspaper good for the environment?

I'm familiar with that area. May I respectfully caution you *not* to display those sentiments while actually IN that area? Those simple union folk may not take too kindly to your words

 

Jay,

I have to take exception to your reference to "simple union folk" as though they are stupid, back woods yokels. In fact they are hard working people who have, on balance been sold a bill of goods over the years. The fault indeed lies in part with the workers,, but more, much more blame should land at the feet of the political infrastructure that has allowed bad forest practices to not only continue,, but to grow. That is where the votes are. (were?) The fault also lies with the moneyed classes, (corporate business etc) whose motivation was to extract maximum profit out of the bush as fast as possible regardless of the long term consequence.

It it far too easy to point fingers of blame,, and refuse to understand that we all have culpability. Problems do not grow in vacuums, nor do solutions. To blame the union (or non union) tree faller, timber hauler, millworker, and give Abatibi, Bowater, Georgia Pacific, Buchannan, Domtar, Boise Cascade etc a pass is disingenuous at best.

It is not unlike the reaction of too many,,, blaming the UAW for the problems of GM. I think there is plenty of blame to go around,,,
and then some.

Icarus

 

Some days, my humor really doesn't get across. I should have phrased it like this:

[Sarcasm Mode = ON] simple union folk [Sarcasm Mode = OFF]

I completely agree with your reply, the forestry workers have been screwed blue without lube, along with everybody who lives in that area.

They've also been brainwashed too.

Hence my little caution. If you were to mosey into a cafe and casually mention something along the lines like, for example, "well, too bad the mill closed its doors and screwed everybody out of a severance package, but at least the environment will be the winner in all of this" you'd get the s*** beat out of you

I'm familiar with that area, especially the area you have your second home (To protect your privacy I won't go into that), and can quite honestly state that anybody who is perceived to be a "green" or an "environmentalist" is absolutely not welcome in those communities

Example, this mill wants permission to remove the scrubbers, and apparently most of the town folks support them!

Mill's bid to dump pollution control to be reviewed - Winnipeg Free Press

Odd how the same mill was bragging about this system

http://www.swanvalleyforest.ca/pdfs/LP_newsletter_vol2_iss6_lowres.pdf

"Environmental Stewardship" what a crock of s***. They're probably giggling that they suckered the local folks into believing it too

Do I have sympathy for those folks? Of *course* I do! They put their trust in large corporations, and - horrors - the government, and got screwed. How about this nasty little surprise

Marathon Pulp Inc. closing for good - The Sault Star - Ontario, CA

So not only does the company dump all sorts of lovely chemicals into the environment, plunder the forest, they even screw the severance out of the workers. Nice!

 

Jay,

You have it about right,,, sad to say. What people don't get in this part of the world is that is is SO big, it is easily seen as limitless.

To those who don't know, the area we are talking about is huge,,, and it it empty of people. In a area that stretches from ~ Sault Ste. Marie to kenora is over 1000 miles, and is anywhere from 200-500 miles wide, say 300,000 sq miles Compare that to California ~155,000 sq miles. Take that area,, Put in the population of ~300,000 people, ~200,000 of which live in the 2 cities of Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, and you are left with ~100,000 scattered in a few small communities scattered along the railway or the Trans Canada Highway and you can begin to see how big it really is. From the Sault to Kenora, you have the one industry (forest products) towns of White River, Marathon, Terrace Bay, Nipigon/Red Rock, Thunder Bay, Dryden Kenora, all spaced about 100 miles apart with little or no population in between. None bigger than 10k, most around 4k, all with a pulp mill, some with a saw mill. I have often driven the entire distance between any two of these towns and not encountered another vehicle,,, depending on the time of day/year.

So it is easy to see how these people have been forgotten, and how these people feel that their wood lands and jobs would be there forever. It it pretty easy to ignore 400,000 sq miles with fewer people than a good sized urban neighbourhood. Add in the vast distances and time require to traverse the "big empty" and you are not surprised.

Icarus

 

So why can't these people be re-employed in a biomass to energy economy? Probably it's not cost effective at this point, but if Canadia ends up in a global carbon cap 'n trade system, they may need to to offset the tar sands emissions.

 

There has been some talk about bio-mass energy projects,,, particularly to fuel 2 coal fired plants. The reality is that bio-mass energy is IMHO a long term loser, and in this case the transportation cost is prohibitive. In addition, fuel pellets are not nearly as labour intensive as sawmilling or paper making. (Not that these industries are very labour intense any more)! Also a cubic meter of firewood/pellet fuel has much smaller value than the same cubic meter as lumber/plywood or paper.

As the late Sam Kinnison said regarding famine victims in Africa, "These people don't need food,,,, they need luggage!"

In point of fact there are far too many people in the area for the bush to support. Like Newfoundland fishermen,,, they need to move on. No politician however would ever make that suggestion.

Icarus

 

You really have to take a drive through the area to understand the answer to that question.

For the most part, it's a tough and forbidding landscape of rough Canadian Shield, numerous small lakes, trees (No original growth that I'm aware of , mostly 3-4th cut now) and not much else. Outside of former industrial towns like the mining town of Atikokan, Armstrong (Grew when a USAF Pinetree Line radar base was there during the early cold war, that closed in the mid 70's), Sioux Lookout (Another USAF Pinetree Line radar base that closed in the mid 80's), Dryden (Pulp and paper town, mill went Tango Uniform Nov of 2008), Red Lake (Gold mine, on and off again operation), Kenora (Mill went Tango Uniform 2005), etc, it's pretty sparsely populated

For example, you can take the Trans Canada eastbound from Winnipeg to Dryden. Just before the Ontario border, it transitions from 4 lane to 2 lane. It's pretty empty, the only sign of habitation outside of Kenora is Vermillion Bay, just before Dryden.

At Dryden, you can take Hwy 502 south. This highway opened in the late 1970's, proving just how late "civilization" came to NW Ontario. Even cell phone coverage didn't come along until around 2003, and the vast majority of the area is no coverage at all

Hwy 502 is around 180 km from the Dryden turnoff to where it dead ends at Hwy 11. At the Hwy 11 junction, you can turn east towards Atikokan and Thunder Bay, or west towards Fort Frances. If you break down on 502, you might not see another vehicle for a *long* time.

In winter, if there is a blizzard and you get stuck on 502, you'd be in very deep s*** unless you had a satellite phone

Outside of on again off again minng (Always rumors of gold mines opening, which never seem to pan out), there is forestry and not much else. Although folks in that region are proud, they also are deeply uneasy over the harsh fact that once a kid graduates from high school, they have little choice but to move on to the outside world.

The population in that area is steadily decreasing, leaving behind a growing elderly cohort that require long-term care. Not a very good situation to be in

 

As a WAG, I'd say 20 times the population that could just be supported. Any politician that suggested they "move on" would be committing political suicide

Actually, for every person graduating from grade 12, it would be best to hand them a one way bus ticket good for anywhere in Canada, in addition to their worthless diploma. You'd be doing them a favor ...

 

I figured as much. I wouldn't say biomass is a loser necessarily. It may not be a big player in world energy markets, but I bet there will be smaller, niche markets where it can play an important role. Bio char plants can create electricity or oil as well as producing fertilizer and are, I believe, carbon negative, so there's some potential there.

 

If you want to add to the list of TU forest products mills,

Ainsworth sawmill in Barwick,, short shifts. Buchannan(nee Mathieu) Sawmill in Sapawi, shut down. Proboard OSB Mill Atikokan, closed. Northern wood, Thunderbay Closed. Ft. William Fine Paper, Thunder Bay closed. Abatibi Paper mill, Thunder Bay, shut down, Bowater Paper Thunder Bay,, (this mill was built in the 1920's , was owned by and supplied the Chicago Tribune with it's paper all these years!) Short shift,, intermittent shut down. Red Rock ply mill, closed, Nipigon Pulp mill,, shut down, Terrace Bay paper,, shut down, (after Buchannan looted several million to "save it"). Marathon Pulp mill,, closed.

Add to these the ones I don't know about in Long Lac, Hearst, Kapaskasing and the job losses are in the tens of thousands.

As for it's isolation,,, when I was growing up the Trans Canada was just complete across the North Shore of Lake Superior was just open. Hwy 11 was not even built between Thunder Bay and Ft. Frances, and none of the little feeder roads were not there, no to mention the miles of logging roads. We couldn't drive to our lakeshore until 1995.

I just drove from Thunder Bay to Ft. Frances on a saturday in March,,, I think I passed 1 car,, and less than 15 passed us in the other direction,,, this in ~400kms.

Icarus

 

The OSB plant or a sawmill. I recall there is a fairly new plant in Barwick, I though it was an OSB facility.

With the severe housing market implosion in the US, I have no doubt a lot of Canadian OSB mills will close the doors. Very sad

It's a lonely drive between Fort Frances to Thunder Bay. In 1989 I was out of the Army and decided to spend a couple of weeks on a road trip.

Rented a car in Winnipeg at the airport, drove down through Steinbach, Sprague, crossed at Warroad, MN, across to Baudette, MN where I crossed back into Canada at Rainy River.

Passing all those sad little dead towns - probably a fraction of the size they used to be, judging by all the decaying and abandoned homes - on the MN side, turned the trip into a downer for me. Between Rainy River and Fort Frances, if I recall the only sign of life was tiny communities like Barwick and Stratton, then Emo.

Once past Fort Frances and that bumpy Causeway, things really became sparse. I distinctly remember Mine Center, as an old couple was about 10 km west of Mine Center and their car had a flat tire. They claim they had been waiting on the side of the road for two hours and I was the first vehicle to come along

Their car was probably 5 years old, the lugnuts were rusted on so tight they couldn't budge them. I had to mumble a few F Bombs at the lugnuts before I could budge them, but after 20 minutes had their spare tire on and was on my merry way

Once in Thunder Bay, I reversed my direction and took the Trans Canada back to Winnipeg. I remember the small little communities, already many were dying, quickly fading into the rear view mirror. Then Dryden, Vermillion Bay, Kenora, and was I ever glad to make it back to Winnipeg and get the hell out of there

I was a lot younger back then, and when you're in your mid 20's and full of piss and vinegar, sad little dying towns are a downer.

Since then, I've tried to make the round trip from Winnipeg, to Kenora, down through Nestor Falls, and back west towards Rainy RIver, Baudette MN, and back to Winnipeg. I alternate the next year by going Winnipeg, Kenora, Dryden, Hwy 502, down through Ft Frances, across to Rainy River, and back home

It's sad how those communities are dying out, but I also like stopping in the middle of BFE along Hwy 502 and just take in the scenery. It's beautiful country there, maybe this summer I should rent a motorhome and spend a couple of nights parked somewhere along 502.

 

I honestly don't remember if the mill in Barwick is sawmill or OSB,,, fact is, is doesn't make much difference.

I live east of Atikokan, along the old CN south line. We were the last community between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg to get a road,, we used to rely on the train,,,until they killed the passenger service in ~1975. My father was the postmaster in our little community. That community, along with all the other railway side bush communities have dried up and gone. Where we were once ~ 30 we are now 3. Most communities ae none. The bush is a very empty place when fishing season is over, or moose season is not on. No one lives off the land any more. I have a couple of Native friends who still trap,,, but they commute from town!

I myself moved away in the late '60's to earn a living, only to return for much of the year to enjoy the solitude I treasure.

Sort of just the way I like it now

Icarus

 

I'm only vaguely familiar with that area. Back in 03 a few of us from the office rented a motor home and explored a logging road that ran north quite a ways, the road turned off the highway perhaps 5 km west of Mine Centre

The terrain around Atikokan is pretty much like the lonely drive on 502 from Dryden south to the highway. When the mine in Atikokan shut down, a lot of folks thought the pollution would quickly go away. That sort of pollution hangs around for generations

I like solitude as well. Am considering more property, perhaps north of Dryden if I can get a good enough deal. Sadly, a lot of homes around former boom towns and industrial towns are abandoned and neglected

 

Most newspaper is recycled here in Adelaide but even recycling uses water and energy.
My brother works for a newspaper, I doubt he is looking forward to the end of printed newspapers.
Touch screens are great for puzzles, I watched a woman on a bus doing puzzles on a small touch screen device.
My dad was also employed in the newspaper industry, it will be missed when it goes.

 

Newspapers here are recycled under my birds, then to compost.

 

Overall, recycling uses far less energy than raw input sources, but you're correct: there is still a significant water/energy consumption

In the mid 1980's I wrote a tic-tac-toe game for a Honeywell TDC 3000 industrial computer. It was more as a fun thing to show off to other engineers.

The Honeywell TDC 3000 used a token ring Local Control Network, each Universal Station had a 20 inch monitor with a touch screen LED driver bezel around it

This would be a typical two-tier US arrangement, say at a large petrochemical facility. A single Universal Station keypad with monitor cost around $78,000 in the mid 1980's!



So after using fairly convoluted Control Language (Like COBOL), and the Picture Editor (Build graphics and assign touch screen target behavior) it worked very well

We quickly realized the operators would be spending all of their time just playing tic-tac-toe instead of monitoring a critical and dangerous process. So I made a very simple programming change that would only allow the program to execute with the Engineer Personality mounted, not with the Operator Personality mounted

It would also run on the Engineer Workstation, but that required a bit more code to make the mouse work. This is the short-lived Engineer Workstation



Ah, the good ole days

 

No, but now that you mention it, I'm always looking for a good excuse to pee on something. Even my cats roll their eyes at this behavior

 

Don't tolerate that nonsense from your pets, a quick soaking 'll set 'em to rights.

 

Well, it's bad when the cats disapprove of the owner's peeing habits